Ben Collins-Sussman

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Ben Collins-Sussman

Ben Collins-Sussman (born
January 1973) is a programmer,
engineering manager, and musician. A
lifelong native of Chicago, he still
lives there with his wife, kids, and
cats. His friends tease that he is
a "collector of hobbies", but his
interests tend to cluster around
activities that are collaborative,
social, and often require balancing
technical problem-solving against
artfulness.

Contents

Software Engineering

Ben began working as a professional programmer in the mid-1990s.
He's best known for his role as a co-founder and co-designer
of Subversion, a
popular version-control tool to help programmers collaborate. Ben also
co-authored the the main
O'Reilly manual for the software; the complete book is
online.

Ben is currently the engineering Site Lead for Google's Chicago
office. He joined Google in 2005 as one of the first
two engineers in Chicago. He ported Subversion to their
scalable Bigtable technology, then helped write and
launch Project
Hosting on Google Code, which hosted hundreds of
thousands of open-source projects up through 2016.
After managing Google Code, Ben managed two different
Display Ads teams, and today manages multiple teams in charge
of Google's search infrastructure.

Music and Composition

Ben spent his childhood learning piano, trained mainly in jazz and
improvisation. In high school and college he participated in
multiple choral groups, taking a particular interest
in barbershop
quartets. In his 30s he became interested in folk music, and now
enjoys
playing bluegrass
and old-time banjo
in local jam sessions.

Ben has a long-standing (moonlight) career as a composer for Chicago
theaters. With his collaborator Andre Pluess, they've won multiple
awards for composition, sound design, and new musical theater works.
Their most successful original musical was
probably Winesburg,
Ohio, an adapation of Sherwood Anderson's famous novel. It premiered at
Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, then played at a new-works festival
in NYC, then at the Arden Theater (Philadelphia) and at
KC
Repertory (Kansas City). It won a both a Jeff Award (Chicago)
and an Ovation Award (LA). Their most recent musical
-- Eastland
-- debuted
in 2012 at Lookinggglass Theatre and received three Jeff Award
nominations. In 2013 is was selected to perform as part of a new
musical showcase in New York City.

Photography and Art

Ben has a keen interest in photography, posting his favorite work
to his Flickr
stream. He occasionally does professional work, shooting events,
weddings, and headshots. He also has a popular Introduction
to Photography page that he wrote for his friends getting
into the hobby.

In late 2014, Ben picked up a lateral interest in drawing as an
alternate means of capturing a moment in time. Though not formally
trained, he worked through a number of books and online classes,
posting his progress on
both Deviant Art and
Instagram.
Ben enjoys working in graphite, ink, and watercolor, and
participates in
various Urban
Sketching events.